When I was six years old, I told my grandmother I was going to be an archaeologist. For at least two years before that, I had been set on being a paleontologist. But after a trip to Arizona, during which we visited the great Mesa Verde ruins, I was now convinced that I liked Native Americans way more than dinosaurs.
The movie Jurassic Park had inspired my initial interest in dinosaurs. The first time I tried to watch the movie, I admittedly couldn't make it past the T-Rex escaping and terrorizing the Jeeps. But my grandmother insisted I would love the movie, and as a four-year old, I trusted my grandmother completely.
We watched it again. I covered my eyes during the scary scenes, and sat fascinated for the rest. The brachiosauri, the triceratops, the gallimimus, and even the dilophosaurus caught my imagination, and although I was quite terrified of the tyrannosaur, I thought he was pretty awesome too.
We won't talk about the velociraptors.
From then on, I became that nerdy kid. I was the kid with the dinosaur books, and not the fun ones where some little boy has a dinosaur as a pet, but boring ones with hardly any pictures. At five years of age, I could discourse intelligently on several different theories of the dinosaurs' sudden extinction. When I was in kindergarten, the second grade teacher asked me to come in and teach the lesson about dinosaurs.
I knew all the most common dinosaurs, what periods they would have lived in, what they ate, their social behaviors... I was a dinosaur encyclopedia in miniature, fun-sized for your convenience. I maintain much of this knowledge even today -- I can't begin to tell you my dismay when they announced that the brontosaurus was a hoax.
Pluto isn't a planet. Tomatoes aren't a vegetable. Indigo isn't a color. And brontosauri never existed. Our modern world is a killjoy.
You can imagine, since I displayed such devotion to my paleontological pursuits, that the experience I had at Mesa Verde was quite powerful. It caused me to rethink my life plan. Whereas most little six-year-old girls wanted to be princesses or supermodels or the first female president, I was now absolutely certain I would be an archaeologist.
As my fascination with history grew, I spread a wide net. I took in American history, world history, prehistoric theories, myths and legends of prominent cultures. But my real passion was for Native Americans, particularly those of the nomadic and puebloan southwest.
Very soon after declaring my archaeological ambitions, I developed a healthy fascination for a southwestern Native American symbol: Kokopelli. His legend permeates most of the western region of the United States, and goes as far south as the Mayans in Central America. Legend has it that an actual, wandering flute player travelled around the region's trade routes, playing his wooden flute and trading trinkets (mostly jewelry and precious materials like turquoise, obsidian, and shells). This paragraph actually has nothing to do with anything -- I just wanted to tell you about Kokopelli.
My family and friends were all very supportive of my career choice. When I was in middle school, my mother even enrolled me in an archaeology program at the Belle Meade plantation. I was thrilled. Over the span of two summers, I spent about a month digging stuff up.
I learned how to grid a dig area, how to dig by level, how you ought to sift the dirt to make sure you aren't missing anything. I got pretty frustrated with the number of buttons and nails we uncovered our first summer, when we dug at the site of an old tool shed. But even more frustrating was when we found a complete hinge, rusted through, and had to continue to dig by level around it, rather than simply pulling it out triumphantly.
I learned (with less enthusiasm), how to catalogue, label, and describe each and every item you unearthed, no matter how modern or boring or small some of those items happened to be. In my second summer, I bagged and recorded everything from pig bones to a bottle cap from an old school, 20-oz. glass bottle of Coca-Cola.
I learned how to research your area in relation to your finds, so as to form an educated and plausible theory about what you have uncovered. We were fortunate when we dug at the tool shed to already have historical records indicating its location on the plantation. We were less fortunate with our information during the second summer, when we were the first to dig on newly reacquired land.
We knew the land had once belonged to the plantation, that it had been sold sometime in the early 1900s, and that it had been mostly farm and pastureland. So you can imagine our surprise when we dug to only Level 3 (not very deep at all) and uncovered a layer of rocks, clearly man-made.
We speculated about its usage, trying to justify it with the smaller artifacts we had already gathered. Nails, bones, and bottlecaps aside, there wasn't much to give us clues. Perhaps a farm road, or the foundation of a small cabin? But afer much speculation and digging an entire four-square grid of next-to-nothing, we found our answer in the photographical archives of the plantation -- a barbecue pit. It was invigorating. (I'm sure that longwinded explanation wasn't boring for you at all).
I remained glued to my dreams of working in the dirt all the way until my freshman year of college. As it often does with people far more motivated than myself, college changed me. I realized I had a penchant for languages, and a serious weakness about homework.
I quickly understood that an anthropology major would be a lot of hard work, and also kind of awful. My first and only anthropology class was taught by a professor who officially turned me off to the entire department. Within a month, she had informed us that we knew nothing about Scotland, and we were stupid if we thought we did. She also succeeded in teaching me that, according to gender stereotypes, I should have been a guy. I loathed that class, and all its stereotypes.
So I changed my tune. Yet I still found myself connected to certain quirks I had developed as a budding archaeologist. Two, in particular, stick with me even now.
1- Trash. I have a thing about trash. Maybe that's why I am so fascinated by litter on the roads, or by what my apartment neighbors throw out. You can learn a lot about people from their trash. Thousands of years from now, when our civilization is just dust, future archaeologists will be conducting major digs in our land fills.
2- Journals. Although they can be rather unreliable, journals are a huge historical resource. They are often very informative without even intending to be. Because of this conviction, I decided that I ought to keep journals myself, for the benefit of the future historians and archaeologists. My journals are completely wacky, but I do throw in tidbits about the news of the day sometimes. If you can sift through the crazy, you'll find some historical gems, I think.
Similarly, I wrote letters during college, since many records can be traced back to an exchange of letters. This has faded over time, but I still wish that snail mail was the most common communication method. I like it way better than email, and infinitely more than the phone. But it's not, so this paragraph is a moot point. I'm just full of useless paragraphs today.
Now that I've dropped out of college and started paying off my Exorbitant Money-Sucking Loans, I find myself coming full circle. I still want to be an archaeologist. That childhood dream is not dead. It's fitting, in a way. When I declared a Russian major, I considered my archaeological aspirations to be ancient history, and here I am discovering them all over again.
I guess what I'm saying is, we have to chase our dreams while we're still young. Responsible Adult Limbo sucks in so, so many ways, but the only way out is up. We're allowed to use this time to figure out what we're doing. We can make mistakes, we can learn, we can still be growing up. This is the time for adventures.
My adventure started in a barbecue pit. Who knows where that road will take me?
The movie Jurassic Park had inspired my initial interest in dinosaurs. The first time I tried to watch the movie, I admittedly couldn't make it past the T-Rex escaping and terrorizing the Jeeps. But my grandmother insisted I would love the movie, and as a four-year old, I trusted my grandmother completely.
We watched it again. I covered my eyes during the scary scenes, and sat fascinated for the rest. The brachiosauri, the triceratops, the gallimimus, and even the dilophosaurus caught my imagination, and although I was quite terrified of the tyrannosaur, I thought he was pretty awesome too.
We won't talk about the velociraptors.
From then on, I became that nerdy kid. I was the kid with the dinosaur books, and not the fun ones where some little boy has a dinosaur as a pet, but boring ones with hardly any pictures. At five years of age, I could discourse intelligently on several different theories of the dinosaurs' sudden extinction. When I was in kindergarten, the second grade teacher asked me to come in and teach the lesson about dinosaurs.
I knew all the most common dinosaurs, what periods they would have lived in, what they ate, their social behaviors... I was a dinosaur encyclopedia in miniature, fun-sized for your convenience. I maintain much of this knowledge even today -- I can't begin to tell you my dismay when they announced that the brontosaurus was a hoax.
Pluto isn't a planet. Tomatoes aren't a vegetable. Indigo isn't a color. And brontosauri never existed. Our modern world is a killjoy.
You can imagine, since I displayed such devotion to my paleontological pursuits, that the experience I had at Mesa Verde was quite powerful. It caused me to rethink my life plan. Whereas most little six-year-old girls wanted to be princesses or supermodels or the first female president, I was now absolutely certain I would be an archaeologist.
As my fascination with history grew, I spread a wide net. I took in American history, world history, prehistoric theories, myths and legends of prominent cultures. But my real passion was for Native Americans, particularly those of the nomadic and puebloan southwest.
Very soon after declaring my archaeological ambitions, I developed a healthy fascination for a southwestern Native American symbol: Kokopelli. His legend permeates most of the western region of the United States, and goes as far south as the Mayans in Central America. Legend has it that an actual, wandering flute player travelled around the region's trade routes, playing his wooden flute and trading trinkets (mostly jewelry and precious materials like turquoise, obsidian, and shells). This paragraph actually has nothing to do with anything -- I just wanted to tell you about Kokopelli.
My family and friends were all very supportive of my career choice. When I was in middle school, my mother even enrolled me in an archaeology program at the Belle Meade plantation. I was thrilled. Over the span of two summers, I spent about a month digging stuff up.
I learned how to grid a dig area, how to dig by level, how you ought to sift the dirt to make sure you aren't missing anything. I got pretty frustrated with the number of buttons and nails we uncovered our first summer, when we dug at the site of an old tool shed. But even more frustrating was when we found a complete hinge, rusted through, and had to continue to dig by level around it, rather than simply pulling it out triumphantly.
I learned (with less enthusiasm), how to catalogue, label, and describe each and every item you unearthed, no matter how modern or boring or small some of those items happened to be. In my second summer, I bagged and recorded everything from pig bones to a bottle cap from an old school, 20-oz. glass bottle of Coca-Cola.
I learned how to research your area in relation to your finds, so as to form an educated and plausible theory about what you have uncovered. We were fortunate when we dug at the tool shed to already have historical records indicating its location on the plantation. We were less fortunate with our information during the second summer, when we were the first to dig on newly reacquired land.
We knew the land had once belonged to the plantation, that it had been sold sometime in the early 1900s, and that it had been mostly farm and pastureland. So you can imagine our surprise when we dug to only Level 3 (not very deep at all) and uncovered a layer of rocks, clearly man-made.
We speculated about its usage, trying to justify it with the smaller artifacts we had already gathered. Nails, bones, and bottlecaps aside, there wasn't much to give us clues. Perhaps a farm road, or the foundation of a small cabin? But afer much speculation and digging an entire four-square grid of next-to-nothing, we found our answer in the photographical archives of the plantation -- a barbecue pit. It was invigorating. (I'm sure that longwinded explanation wasn't boring for you at all).
I remained glued to my dreams of working in the dirt all the way until my freshman year of college. As it often does with people far more motivated than myself, college changed me. I realized I had a penchant for languages, and a serious weakness about homework.
I quickly understood that an anthropology major would be a lot of hard work, and also kind of awful. My first and only anthropology class was taught by a professor who officially turned me off to the entire department. Within a month, she had informed us that we knew nothing about Scotland, and we were stupid if we thought we did. She also succeeded in teaching me that, according to gender stereotypes, I should have been a guy. I loathed that class, and all its stereotypes.
So I changed my tune. Yet I still found myself connected to certain quirks I had developed as a budding archaeologist. Two, in particular, stick with me even now.
1- Trash. I have a thing about trash. Maybe that's why I am so fascinated by litter on the roads, or by what my apartment neighbors throw out. You can learn a lot about people from their trash. Thousands of years from now, when our civilization is just dust, future archaeologists will be conducting major digs in our land fills.
2- Journals. Although they can be rather unreliable, journals are a huge historical resource. They are often very informative without even intending to be. Because of this conviction, I decided that I ought to keep journals myself, for the benefit of the future historians and archaeologists. My journals are completely wacky, but I do throw in tidbits about the news of the day sometimes. If you can sift through the crazy, you'll find some historical gems, I think.
Similarly, I wrote letters during college, since many records can be traced back to an exchange of letters. This has faded over time, but I still wish that snail mail was the most common communication method. I like it way better than email, and infinitely more than the phone. But it's not, so this paragraph is a moot point. I'm just full of useless paragraphs today.
Now that I've dropped out of college and started paying off my Exorbitant Money-Sucking Loans, I find myself coming full circle. I still want to be an archaeologist. That childhood dream is not dead. It's fitting, in a way. When I declared a Russian major, I considered my archaeological aspirations to be ancient history, and here I am discovering them all over again.
I guess what I'm saying is, we have to chase our dreams while we're still young. Responsible Adult Limbo sucks in so, so many ways, but the only way out is up. We're allowed to use this time to figure out what we're doing. We can make mistakes, we can learn, we can still be growing up. This is the time for adventures.
My adventure started in a barbecue pit. Who knows where that road will take me?
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